Optimizing the build speed for PyTorch and PyTorch/XLA involves several strategies:
Optimizing PyTorch Build Speed
1. Use Pre-Built Binaries: Instead of building from source, use pre-built binaries available from PyTorch's official website. These binaries are optimized with libraries like MKL and Magma, which are crucial for performance[5].
2. Optimize Build Process: If you must build from source, use tools like `ccache` to cache compiled files. This significantly reduces rebuild times after making small changes to the code[7].
3. Parallelize Compilation: Utilize multi-core processors by setting the number of build jobs to match the number of CPU cores available. This can be done using flags like `-j` with `make` or similar options in your build system.
Optimizing PyTorch/XLA Performance
1. Use Lazy Execution: PyTorch/XLA utilizes lazy tensor execution, which records operations in a graph before execution. This allows for optimization by fusing multiple operations into a single optimized operation[4][6].
2. Preload Data: Use `MPDeviceLoader` to preload data onto XLA devices, reducing communication overhead between the host CPU and the device[8].
3. Minimize CPU-Device Communication: Reduce or remove operations that require synchronization between the CPU and XLA device, such as print statements or logging callbacks[8].
4. Use Barriers for Optimization: Insert barriers like `xm.mark_step()` to break large computation graphs into smaller ones, allowing the XLA compiler to optimize them more effectively[8].
5. Leverage Cloud TPUs: For large-scale training, utilize Cloud TPUs with PyTorch/XLA to achieve high-performance and cost-effective training[2][9].
Citations:[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/kvs1ex/d_here_are_17_ways_of_making_pytorch_training/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSpmRtWuMs8
[3] https://sebastianraschka.com/blog/2023/pytorch-faster.html
[4] https://pytorch.org/xla/release/r2.4/index.html
[5] https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/is-building-from-source-really-speed-up-inference-speed/91057
[6] https://pytorch.org/xla/release/2.2/index.html
[7] https://discuss.pytorch.org/t/any-tips-for-speeding-up-the-source-build-process/184558
[8] https://pytorch.org/xla/master/learn/xla-overview.html
[9] https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/developers-practitioners/scaling-deep-learning-workloads-pytorch-xla-and-cloud-tpu-vm